


Households

by lookingforatardis



Series: The Blank Years [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: ? - Freeform, ??? - Freeform, AKA, Angst, Fluff, POV First Person, The Blank Years, daddy!elio, idk what this is, no NOT THAT KIND of daddy, the time after oliver sends him letters but before the 11 yr mark where oliver's fam visits B.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-28 00:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13259574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforatardis/pseuds/lookingforatardis
Summary: "Papa!" The sound echoes, delicate, giddy, a dream in the near empty piazza. I can't stop the smile from overtaking my entire being.[title is a song by sleeping at last] - Remember when Luca said he imagined Elio having a son? Part of a collection of works which take place during The Blank Years where Elio and Oliver have no contact.





	Households

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure what to name this, so I decided on naming it after a song that I love. Households is a wonderful little piece by Sleeping at Last that somehow kind of captures the wistful and soft yet melancholy tone of the this story. Enjoy!

"Papa!" The sound echoes, delicate, giddy, a dream in the near empty piazza. I can't stop the smile from overtaking my entire being.

He scampers, toddling along the edge of the fountain, hands hitting it every other step with vigor. What he believes he's accomplishing, I'm not sure. His gleeful smile is my melody, playing over and over again in my heart. Rowan was missing this, but I couldn't bother myself about that now. There would be other memories, other moments. For now, this one was mine.

Aaron's cheeks are rosy when he turns towards me, waving. I smile, wave back with both hands, leaning forward from where I sit a few yards away. It's a cold day, the coldest in a while, but he insisted we go out. "Play! Outside play!" _Fa molto freddo fuori;_ it's very cold outside, Rowan had warned him. He didn't care, ran straight for his coat which was hanging next to mine. His little arms couldn't reach it, swinging above his head as he opened and closed his fists as if it would help. It was bright red, just like one I had when I was a few years older than he was now, maybe five or six, I couldn't remember. My father had brought it with him a few months ago when he came to visit and asked me if I had remembered my own big red coat. I hadn't.

 "Careful, Aaron," I say, seeing him lose his balance. I'm on feet in a second, perched, ready to run to catch him, but he balances and laughs wildly, clapping his hands, returning to his tour of the fountain, singing some song I don't recognize-perhaps he created it just now- mixing his languages up every couple of words, none of it making any sense but sounding warm and familiar all the same. It makes me smile fondly, recognizing the melody as being a cousin of sorts to _Une Barque Sur L'océan_. I wasn't sure why he knew it, I rarely played it. I'd have to start him on the piano soon, I think. He'd love it.

"Papa! Guardami moi! Lookie!" Silly boy, I think. He knew too many things, translating anything he said was an adventure in deciphering three different languages and discarding unnecessary words. His vocabulary was impressive, I had to admit, but the rules hadn't clicked for him, not yet. They would eventually, just as they did with me. Aaron's Italian was the best, his English a very close second. The French was the most fractured; Rowan didn't speak it unless it was necessary, unfamiliar with all of the complexities of the language despite having lived in France for a time. In fact, as I remember now, I wasn't sure I even really spoke French to Aaron that much after we moved here. It must have been my mother when she came and stayed with us this summer to spend time with him and help out while Ro and I had to work days. We didn't live far from B. so she visited often. I wondered how we would cope with the loss of my parents when we returned to America. Perhaps we didn't have to, perhaps we could stay here always, Rowan would say. We had met in America at university, but never lived together there. We moved to Lyon where Aaron was born, and that became our first home. We moved here a little over a year ago, just before the leaves fell from the trees. The job I had been offered a month ago hung between us every day, though, and I knew there would be consequences for accepting it and asking our little family to return to New England, but it called to me in a way I didn't quite understand yet.

"I see," I call after Aaron, rising to go to him. I crouch down and catch him in my arms, his little legs kicking, a smile plastered on his face. I release him and adjust his grey hat, tugging it back over his red ears, zipping his coat back up after it had been loosened in all his play. I sigh. Rowan would kill me if our son caught a cold after I promised we wouldn't stay if it was too brisk out. I smile fondly at the boy, his brown curls escaping the hat, his blue eyes like a memory of another life, bright and hopeful, full of the vast variety of life still unlived and unknown. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I wasn't sure I would ever truly love anything as much as him, ignoring the tug at my heart I refused to acknowledge anymore. Rowan, even, knew this, didn't hold it against me as I'd read the boy to sleep at night, or took him on picnics, just the two of us.

"Burr," he says, shaking him arms comically. I laugh, nodding and resting my elbows on my knees.

"Oui, très ' _burr_ ,' mon trésor; yes, very ' _burr,_ ' my treasure." He smiles like a madman and lets his head fall against me, his gloved hands happily tapping little rhythms against my shoulders as I wrap my arms around him and stand, swinging him in a circle. I put him down and he grabs my hand, tugging it to make me follow him. I relent, letting him take me to the other side of the piazza. "Doggy!" Aaron says, pointing. My gaze follows where he points and I stop, suddenly, the air in my lungs escaping until it's nothing more than a puff, a cloud, floating away, leaving me anchored to the ground, limbs heavy. The man turns towards us at Aaron's excitement and smiles. His blond hair, carefully combed, fair skin, sheer height. My god, it could have been his brother.

I swallow and snap out of it when Aaron lets go of my hand in favor of running to the animal, giggling when it wags its tale and kisses his gloves. I walk over to them, smiling cautiously, feeling rather than seeing that his eyes are blue, just as blue as Aaron's, just as blue as _his_.

"Bon pomeriggio; good afternoon," he says. I nod and look back at my boy, shaking his gaze from my memory, wanting nothing more than the reminder to leave my body.

I didn't allow myself to think of him. Rowan always knew there was someone else that summer, sensing it when I recalled memories of home after we had met in America. I brushed it off then as I had every time I was asked about him. _Nothing to worry about, love. Just a ghost from my past, is all. No one now._

Some nights, when it was very still and warm, I would dream of his smile, his eyes, the unbuttoned Billowy- which still hung in my closet, gathering dust- dropping from his shoulders. I'd awake with his phantom hands on my skin and go for a swim or run, anything to shake the cold memory. It hadn't happened in many months, not since the leaves changed color a few months ago.

I pick Aaron up and offer a polite goodbye to the stranger, walking away and calming my son as he complains about leaving his new friend behind.

When we return, Rowan kisses us both, sensing my distress and asking quietly if I'm alright. I nod, saying I was just chilly.

"Mais, oui; of course. There is snow on the ground, Elio!" I smile and shrug, helping Aaron out of his winter gear.

"We were plenty warm, love," I insist. "Just my face is cold, truly." Ro accepts this but tsks at me, running a hand over my hair and going back to the kitchen where I can smell fresh bread baking, a skill learned from our neighbor in Lyon.

I sit at the table and watch Aaron run around, a toy car in hand. I let him ground me, pull my current world in focus, letting go of all memories of the past like only he could make me do. Today was a good day, I think. No need to ruin it with the haunting of another, the breathless sorrow I'd gone without for too long apparently. I hold onto the sound Aaron makes when he pretends his toy crashes into the wall, his little blue eyes meeting mine to see if I saw. I smile and rest my head on my hand, elbow on the kitchen table. Blue eyes, just like him. The only memory I held against my heart every night as I drifted to sleep, meeting him in memories of old and what-ifs of never. Aaron, my sweet boy, was the only one who could tear my heart apart and restitch it, a constant reminder, if only in his eyes; his heart warm enough to thaw mine on the worst nights. I let it warm me now, his laughter filling my lungs with air, his curly head the sweetest sight. I watch Rowan play with him as the bread cooks, smiling at my little family, and think this could be enough. For as long as I live, perhaps, just _maybe_ , this would be enough to satisfy my wandering heart.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's so nice to finally write in Elio's style :) Something yall haven't learned about me yet- I have a thing with names. I only ever choose them if they fit characters and are significant in some way. Just a hint in case you were curious as to how I settled on them... go visit me on tumblr!


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